On Gritty Sidewalks, Pampered Feet; Spas and Hucksters Are a Funky Mix on 14th Street

By JENNIFER STEINHAUER

Published: March 3, 2005

As unlikely as it seemed, Amy Pollock -- and her feet -- found peace along 14th Street, somewhere between the dollar-bin motor oil, the bulging futons spilling into the street, and the odoriferous flow of fried chicken and burgers from every corner.

From her perch at Acqua Beauty Bar, air blowing on her freshly painted toenails, Ms. Pollock said she felt transported from the blare of horns and hucksters just outside. ''You don't hear the traffic, you don't feel the bustle, you just relax,'' she said.

After several decades as an outpost of $4 nightgowns, rolling suitcases and junky little wind-up toys that darted around the ankles of passing pedestrians, 14th Street is now dotted with upscale day spas, drawing in the sort of women (and occasionally men) who believe that life lived without walnut and apricot pedicures is not worth entertaining.

The proliferation of spas on 14th Street, as is almost always the case in New York's ever-transforming neighborhoods, is due to the convergence of several economic trends.

First is the overall growth of personal care industry in New York, which has provided a growing plethora of workers to knead, wax, pluck, rub and paint its residents, even during economic downturns. The number of people who received esthetician licenses from the state increased 75 percent in New York City from 2001 to 2004.

Since 2001, five spas have opened on 14th Street alone, joined by nearly a dozen others on surrounding streets and along Union Square.

There is a spa for fellows only -- Nickel Spa for Men -- and a tiny little spot, Sole, which just offers foot reflexology. There is Clay, which is attached to a giant, second-floor gym, and Simply Spa, which offers clients the chance to zoom through multiple treatments at once. Graceful Spa and Acqua Beauty Bar offer services in an environment that feels distinctly uptown.

The owners of the spas say they were drawn by the presence of college students -- flowing from the New York University dorms that were erected on the street at the end of the 1990's, and buildings that serve the New School University, Pratt Institute and Parsons School of Design -- as well the metamorphosis of the meatpacking district.

The street's proximity to the third-largest subway station in Manhattan, the ever-improving Union Square Park and an explosion of residential conversions around the area have combined to make the area more attractive to expensive retailers.

''We chose to open our spa at 14th Street because we believe it's a very trendy area,'' said Li Huang, who opened Graceful Spa late last year at 14th Street and Seventh Avenue. ''Bordering both Chelsea and the West Village with Union Square to the east and the meatpacking district to the west, the neighborhood has attracted many of the young and affluent crowds that our services are targeted toward.''

In many ways, 14th Street remains stubbornly -- or charmingly, depending on one's point of view -- anchored in yesteryear. It was once described by the architecture writer Paul Goldberger as a street ''teeming with the sort of vulgar energy that seems so often to be the very force behind New York itself.'' The street still teems with discount stores, union halls, gritty doughnut shops and takeout places.

But those businesses are increasingly joined by three key signs of gentrification: expensive food, flecks of good style and rising rents.

''The epicenter of 14th Street is the part from University Place going west,'' said Benjamin Fox, an executive vice president of Newmark Retail LLC, a leasing agent. (Mr. Fox was reached, quite coincidentally, as he was getting a foot massage at Sole.)

In that area, he said, retail rents have been $200 to $300 per square foot, double the prices of three years ago. The prices shrink to less than $100 per square foot going east of Third Avenue, Mr. Fox said, but are still far above a few years ago. ''More entrepreneurial tenants are moving in and replacing tenants that have been there for years,'' he said. ''And that has been going on in New York since Peter Stuyvesant.''

There are other signs of the future of 14th Street: Guitar Center and Diesel Jeans, a seller of expensive clothing, arrived a few years ago. Filene's Basement, DSW and Forever 21 have parked themselves in the once-blighted and long-empty building at the southwest corner of 14th Street and University Place, former home to Bradlees, and the final (Jimmy Choo) shoe will drop when Whole Foods opens in the spot this spring.

Jamie Ahn, a former banker who now owns Acqua Beauty Bar, one of the first spas to open along the street, discovered the neighborhood while driving through it on her way to dinner.

''I was in the final negotiations on a lease on 57th Street when I drove by and saw a 'for rent' sign,'' she said, referring to the store at 7 East 14th Street, a former Off-Track Betting parlor. ''I thought, 'Wow, the space looks amazing. You can really envision what it would be.' So I decided that instead of being saturated with other spas uptown, I thought it would be nice to be a pioneer. I really changed my mind overnight. I wanted to offer the services in an area that didn't have them.''

Her neighbors in the Victoria, the apartment building above Acqua Beauty Bar, could not have been happier.

The building's board had labored for years to get OTB out of the building, said Robert Myrstad, a board member of Victoria Owners Corporation. Ms. Ahn opened in 2001.

The smell of cigar smoke and urine that once assaulted residents has been replaced with the redolent wafts of ylang-ylang and cassis. Obstreperous horse bettors were out. Soign?women in pointy-toed boots in need of a purifying botanical facial came in their stead.

''Acqua Beauty Bar was the first really 'designed' store on the north side of 14th Street,'' Mr. Myrstad said. ''It had brushed stainless steel, and tiles. It is beautiful looking. One thing it must mean is that there is money in this neighborhood.''

The future and the past of 14th Street exist together in a curious union of inequality, with newcomers raising the prices for the old, and the old keeping the aesthetic vision of the newcomers gently but firmly arrested.

Sole, the foot spa, rests between Second and Third Avenues, separated from the ancient Russian souvenir shop next door -- its window filled with random earrings and dusty, hand-painted nesting dolls -- by an old wrought-iron gate that stands in stark contrast to Sole's modern orange walls.

Across the street is a check-cashing business and a tarot card reader. One must walk far to the west before chic coffee shops and bistros begin to outnumber Taco Bell and its fast-food siblings.

But the street, with its low-slung buildings and cast-iron facades, has enjoyed a dynamic history for centuries. Just as trendy restaurants now line Union Square Park, oyster parlors and lager beer saloons once peppered the area, leading Junius Browne, a reporter for The New York Tribune, to lament in 1869 the high costs of the food in the neighborhood which gave diners ''dyspepsia withal unless you have the stomach of an ostrich,'' according to the book ''Manhattan Manners,'' by M. Christine Boyer.

The food has improved. But some of the rough edges remain. ''This street will never be Madison Avenue,'' said Karen H. Shaw, the executive director of the Union Square Partnership, during a walk along 14th Street last week. The partnership is largely credited with helping to revitalize the park and surrounding streets. ''But there will always be a place in the city for a funky street like this one. I think people like it. It belongs in the city.''

Photos: The foot spa Sole, on the left, set up shop next to a Russian souvenir store on East 14th Street, east of Third Avenue.; Jalkin Idris, a licensed esthetician at Clay, a spa on West 14th Street, applying a facial mask for Michael Kowalski. At left, the women's locker room at Clay. (Photographs by Nancy Siesel/The New York Times)(pg. B1); Jessica Higgins, a reflexologist, works on the feet of Benjamin Fox at Sole on East 14th Street. (Photo by Nancy Siesel/The New York Times)(pg. B7)